A birthright citizenship showdown. We knew SCOTUS’ ruling on universal injunctions wasn’t the final answer to Donald Trump’s day one executive order on birthright citizenship. Now that a federal judge in New Hampshire ruled that a class action lawsuit about the executive order could go forward, the real policy fight begins.
What happens next depends on how aggressive the administration will be. There could be months of class actions like the one in New Hampshire winding its way through the courts before it gets to SCOTUS, or the administration could ask the court to jump in earlier.
They’re sounding aggressive: “Today’s decision is an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s clear order against universal relief,” White House spox Harrison Fields said.
Immigration czar Tom Homan was even more aggressive. “It’s another example of a radical judge not listening to the Supreme Court,” he told Jasmine when she asked if the White House will sue the judge. “The Supreme Court already answered this question. Now he says he has a class. These radical judges, they want to stop the Trump agenda.”
This is the fight legal observers have been waiting for. The only thing legal scholars have sounded truly confident about is that the courts would strike down Trump’s order. The Constitution is clear, they say, and the president’s executive order is prima facie ridiculous. Even after months of rulings expanding Trump’s presidential power, that expectation remains.
“It could be a 7-2 ruling (Alito and Thomas dissenting), or even 9-0,” Dan Urman, law professor at Northeastern emailed us Thursday, after we asked if his mind had changed since he told us something similar the day the EO dropped. “The Court will take the opportunity to appear more moderate and suggest it does not always rule 6-3 and along partisan lines.”
Open Tabs: Mamdani will try to charm New York’s elite (Semafor); John Kerry says Democrats allowed migrant ‘siege’ (BBC); Pro-Israel professor leaves Columbia Univ. (Columbia Spectator); MSU professor joins bid to unseat mid-Michigan’s Tom Barrett (Michigan Advance)
From the Hill
Will the real Secretary of State please stand up? “I talked to him frequently, multiple times a day, sometimes,” Sen. James Risch told NOTUS this week. “And I always say, ‘Is this really you, Marco?’”
The Washington Post report about a robot Marco Rubio messaging a governor, foreign ministers and a member of Congress has senators a little freaked out, NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer reports.
Intelligence committee member Sen. Mike Rounds hadn’t heard about the imposter Rubio efforts until the morning after the story published but said it fits a pattern he is well aware of. “We’ve always known about it,” he said. “We’ve just always tried to keep our technology ahead of it in terms of detection, but this really does draw attention to it.” Sure does!
From the White House
The politics of Trump’s Texas visit. The schedule includes meeting with first responders, a briefing from local elected officials, meeting with family members impacted, and a meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott.
Normal stuff usually, but this is a new normal. The visit comes amid ongoing questions around the disaster response, and this administration’s efforts to dramatically cut the amount of federal funds spent on weather forecasting and FEMA. When Trump visited the site of the L.A. fires shortly after his inauguration, politics was very much a part of it thanks to Trump.
A senior White House official told Jasmine any political questions this time are purely disingenuous. “The only criticism you’re hearing is from Democrats who want to play politics,” the official said.
NOTUS SCOOP
Dark side of the MoonPay A Department of Justice case against an alleged Nigerian scammer accused of fleecing would-be Trump inauguration donors appears to be focused on just two victims with ties to Trump’s crypto interests.
NOTUS’ Claire Heddles connects the dots on the DOJ filings and finds they point to Ivan Soto-Wright and Mouna Ammari Siala of MoonPay, a crypto transaction platform that has been facilitating purchases of Trump’s memecoin $TRUMP.
Soto-Wright and Siala apparently now have the DOJ helping to make them whole after they were duped by false crypto promises.
“That smacks of favoritism or selective enforcement,” Mark Hays, a crypto regulation advocate with Americans for Financial Reform told Claire.
MoonPay and the DOJ did not respond to her detailed questions about the case.
NEW ON NOTUS
Contrail confusion: We’re guessing that RFK Jr. did not foresee the EPA debunking “chemtrails” on its new website. “Im so proud of my friend Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump for their commitment to finally shatter the Deep State Omerta regarding the diabolical mass poisoning of our people,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded Thursday to Zeldin announcing the EPA would be publishing research into contrails. The EPA website says “chemtrails” is a term some use to “inaccurately claim” planes are dumping chemicals on Americans.
Louisiana gets MAHA-pilled: “He’s been an inspiration to a lot of legislators, and I think just citizens, really to think more about what you actually put in your body, what you eat, what medications you take, what vaccines,” Derek Babcock, Louisiana Republican Party chair, told NOTUS’ Torrence Banks. Republican Louisiana legislators passed legislation that bans dyes and artificial sweeteners in school foods, and allows Ivermectin to be distributed as an over-the-counter drug.
Ken Paxton’s divorce gets political: “What Ken Paxton has put his family through is truly repulsive and disgusting,” Joanna Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote in a post on X that was quickly retweeted by the committee itself.
More: Top Trump Official Alleges Jerome Powell Broke the Law During Building Renovation; New Whistleblower Docs Bolster Claim Emil Bove Spoke Openly of Defying Courts
NOT US
- Knives Out on K Street by Ben Terris for New York
- Internal DOJ messages bolster claim that Trump judicial nominee spoke of defying court orders by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney for Politico
- DOGE keeps gaining access to sensitive data. Now, it can cut off billions to farmers by Jenna McLaughlin for NPR
- Trump Loves ICE. Its Workforce Has Never Been So Miserable. by Nick Miroff for The Atlantic
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